The Devil Went Down to Florida
by Syberina5
Summary: Sequel to Humpty Dumpty and 2nd part in the House of Cards Series. Things in Florida escalate. Sonny, Carly, original characters.


Title: _The Devil Went Down to Florida_

Author's Notes: The second part of the House of Cards Series.

"We've waited too long; she can't be staying there of her own free will. Not this long." Temperamental and edgy, he thrust hands through his already haphazard hair.

"There doesn't appear to be any force in the pictures."

"Yes, but we can't even get close enough to the island to get a decent look. How can we tell from miles off shore how much fear is in a woman's eyes? A woman so brave it breaks your heart? I want you to plan a way onto that island. We get her out."

"What about the children?"

"We don't risk their safety. Once we have her Sonny will release the children. He doesn't need them anymore, he has one with his new woman."

"But sir—"

"What did I tell you?"

"Yes, sir." The lackey left confused over his boss' state of mind. He seemed to be forgetting previous orders, situations, reality.

"She seems alright to me, sir. I've done what you asked. No one from out of town has come around. But at one point or another she's been exposed to just about everyone here. Most of them seem to be Miss Eilene Omme's good friends."

He proffered a hand, "Does everyone always use her full name?"

"Pretty much, sir."

"Right," he growled. "I want that report," he stabbed the manila folder on the guard's desk cum kitchen table, "verified or proved wrong. Now."

"Yes, sir." Tormé turned brushing a pen holding hand through his tousled dark brown hair, reddish highlights peeking out courtesy of the Florida sun. He'd do as he was told, was a little leery of dealing with anything to do with the woman who'd had him jumping at cookies, but he'd do it. His boss was boss. He'd be nervous but he'd do it.

"Has she approached you again?"

"No," he answered a little too quickly, a little too loudly, a little too much emotion in his voice. Connecting a little too shame-facedly with his intimidating employer's eyes, he continued. "She a little creepy, ok boss? I mean all smiles and southern sweetness one second and then wham," he slapped his hands together, "and then it's like this demon trying to rip your guts out with a slurpee straw." He rubbed a shaky hand to the side of his nose and his high cheek bones.

He had a memorable face. It was one reason Sonny had sent him. He was memorable but Carly wouldn't be able to connect his face to Sonny's organization. A definite plus in the current situation.

"With all do respect, boss," trembling—it was a bad idea to show fear in from of a man like Sonny Corinthos, "You've never dealt with this woman. She'll give you the shivers." His arms flailed and then resettled at his sides dramatically.

"Maybe, but you always were a little bit of a spaz, Tormé."

"Nawh man. I was the epitome of cool with this chick. Nothing like me. Welcomed her in, was hospitable, kind, and she threatened me."

"With cookies."

"I'm not convinced they weren't doped."

"Right." Sonny flipped absently through Tormé's pictures from surveillance. "What is the hell is this crap?"

"That," he said poking at the shots, "that's art, man."

Sonny cocked his head, "Why is it sideways?"

He snapped the photos out of Sonny's grasp. "What do you know about art? It's an angle, it suits her features. It's nice. It's pretty. She's a pretty girl… even if her eyes are sad," he said getting lost in the look and the Mrs. C's face.

"I didn't send you down here to take pretty pictures of my wife, Tormé, or her sad eyes."

"Yeah," he folded his arms flappingly and sat.

Sonny took back the pictures and said, "You got any coffee?"

"Yeah." But he didn't move.

"Well, then get me some."

"Yeah."

When he was gone Sonny looked through the pictures of his sad wife and the boys, the woman he suspected was from deep in her past. A corpse that had left his wife scarred for a long time.

"Where you off to girl?" One blonde called across the green grass of the lawn.

"You want a ride to church, Miss Eilene Omme?" A woman hollered from beside a large, metallic bug.

"In that death trap? Darling, I will pray for the eternal repose of your good judgment." Her hips swayed, the straw bag in her grip swinging, her legs pumping beneath the airy peach skirt.

"Have it your way, you peahen. Walk on this hot, dusty day. Show your face in the house of God looking like a common vagrant."

"Why Carolina Omme, I'm ashamed at you. You know I'd never look common. Off you go. Get you to God, girl."

"I guess I'll be the one praying for your soul this week Miss Eilene Omme; that you learn to see around your pride."

"Mom, we're gonna be late."

She shushed the young redhead. "I might pray to Jude, he's the one for lost causes."

"See that you do, darling, see that you do." She shook her head as the car trembled off with a laugh.

"She's in the blue cabin, sir." Jumpy, never sure of the greeting his news would garner these days.

"Was there any trouble?"

"No. She was on the beach for a midnight stroll. Our diver grabbed her and swam her right out."

"Good. Once she knows she's safe here, we'll figure out a way to get the boys off the island in a much less drastic way."

Alcazar looked wild-eyed and jittery. His man hurried away at the first opportunity.

Entering the elaborately decorated cabin, blues of deep and soothing tones everywhere, Lorenzo moved to the bed where the woman he'd watched play on the beach for weeks lay asleep. Her hair was still wet from the trip out to the yacht but she'd been changed by the maid and nurse he'd bought aboard.

Going to the edge of the bed he brushed hair off her face. And reveled in the feel of her skin against his. He kneeled down on the ground to put his face to hers. Kissing her he murmured, "Wake up beauty. Come back to me, Sleeping Beauty."

She moaned and rolled, squeezed her eyes and groaned.

"I know your head hurts a little. I'll get the nurse to give you something."

She was still moaning grasping her head.

"God, what was that? I'm in the hospital?" Her voice was guttural and blurred. Her mouth dry and gritty, her head throbbing she pushed past them to ask, "Oh, God Kevin. Where's Kevin?"

"Kevin? Who's Kevin, Carly?"

"My son, God, he's my son. He's on the island. And Jeremy's with him. What happened to the boys?"

"Your boys are safe. They're still on the island."

"Oh, thank you. Where am I?"

"Your with me, Carly."

"Ok, who are you?" He shifted to try and find the eyes she was hiding from the light.

"Lorenzo. You remember, don't you? How we met? How we tried to deny our connection, our need for each other? How horribly we failed? You're safe now. Sonny won't touch you here. We'll get the boys out as soon as we can do so safely?" For all the angling of his head and body he still couldn't get a good look at her. She was writhing in discomfort. "Tell me you remember."

"Nope."

"Oh God, what has he done to you?"

"He?"

"Your husband, you tried to leave him, several times. He's abusive."

"Nope." She shook her head.

"Yes, Carly." He placed his palm gently on the ball of her skull.

"Nope."

"I don't know what he's done to you now, but we'll sort it out. You have to trust me."

"Ok, nope."

There was a snick behind him at the door and the nurse swished in with a syringe.

"Mrs. Corinthos," she placated, "just relax." She slid needle into a fleshy part of her body.

Feeling the pain of the intrusion, "Oh, no needles," the woman called out.

"Shhh, in a moment you'll feel better, ma'am."

"No, no…oh…yes, drugs." She didn't fight the sleep but slumped over in her huddled spot on the bed.

"Rest is best, Mr. Alcazar." The slow moving woman said gently tugging the limp body into a more traditional sleeping position. "She'll feel fresh as a daisy when she wakes up."

"I want Dr. Streple here immediately. He's done something to her mind."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Alcazar."

She flung some hair over her shoulder, the blonde wave melding as it always had into itself. She called out, her voice a song of the south but still so distinctly hers. He'd know it in a crowd. It would still turn his blood.

Transfixed by the image, he watched as she tossed the ball for Michael, Michael gently sent it to Morgan who toddled the ball over to Eilene Omme. She accepted it every time with some graceful flourish, some elaborate phrase of gratitude then chucked it back to the beginning of the line and Carolina's hands like a pro-fielder for the Yankees. He chuckled, a southern belle who made poisoned cookies playing for the Yankees.

The tape cut to snow and then there was night. The back porch, Carolina and Eilene on the swing, their voices were low. Cheerful. Suddenly Carly seemed to curl into Eilene's lap, he could hear her sobbing.

He could hear his heart break.

He'd cut her. More deeply than he'd thought possible.

As his eyes teared, as he wiped at them, he missed Eilene patting Carolina's head and turning burning, venomous eyes to the camera.

Sonny turned off the tape when the snow had been on for a few minutes and he could clear his head of the look on Carly's face long enough to move on.

He turned to the growing stack of photos kept in a file, leafed through.

A stunning picture of Carly, a tear on her cheek, dark wings making her face even more pale in the black and white photo, her full lips almost quivering like a child's. The image was so real it almost moved in his hand, he could nearly hear her sniffle like in the video. It was one of the first Tormé had sent home.

The next was of her pushing Morgan on the swing, His chubby hands reaching for her cheek, he could almost hear the boy giggle.

Another was of his wife tickling Michael the way she had so many times in their home. He could see her roots now. The blonde peeking out of the brown, the brown she'd chosen.

In the next they were gone. Her hair was golden and blowing in the breeze and she and Eilene raced on horseback across a field. Michael and Morgan sat on a blanket in the background with a man in a hat.

The next picture was of them watching, Morgan seemed entranced, Michael was cheering his mother on. The man had a lazy smiled on his face, white teeth showing a wide grin.

Sonny was jealous of that man, and despite Tormé's reports that he didn't seem to favor Carly, or Carolina, with his time or attention—that it was Miss Eilene Omme that seemed to capture the man's loyalty and Carolina only by familial extension.

Sonny didn't trust the law man. A sheriff in a small town. Probably dirtier than Scottie Baldwin turned out to be. Tormé assured him he'd never even seen or heard McInroe raise his voice at the women or the kids. Public opinion of Sheriff Mac was very high. Every single woman in town seemed to know where he was every minute of the day…a lot of not single ones too.

Creeped Tormé out, then gain most things about this situation did. Mostly Eilene.

Soon Sonny came to the new photos, the truly artsy ones fewer and farther between as Sonny had yet to weed out the ones he didn't want to study every night before bed. Some were too raw, too painful, some were blurry or bad angles, taken too fast to show the series of what she was doing, some were too beautiful. They made his heart catch, his gut clutch, they made him want to jump on his plane and fly down to Florida, be on her door step in a matter of hours. Just to hold her, smell her, wipe away the tears he knew she cried everyday over what they'd done. The family they had killed.

She'd gone to church, dropped off and picked Michael up at school—he'd had a spelling bee and done well—gone to the park, ridden her favorite mare, Esmae, slept, and spent time with her family.

Her family. Carly, Michael, Morgan,… and Eilene Omme.

He'd prove she was who he knew she was, and then he'd confront her. He'd see all of them.

She sat in a deck chair, the wind whipping her hair about. The sun had bleached away the brown she'd opted for or maybe Sonny had had her change it when he changed her mind. He'd have a hair dresser flown in when she was more herself.

Coming up behind her he smoothed his hands over her shoulders and kissed her head. "Feeling better?"

"Yup."

"Good." He sat next to her, took her hand. "The doctor will be here soon. He's the best in his field he'll help you get past whatever Sonny put in your head."

"Um… I doubt that, Mr…?"

He squeezed her hand. "Lorenzo, call me Lorenzo."

"Yup. Ok, here's the thing guy. Sonny Corinthos didn't do a thing to my mind." She stared out over the water, trying to think of how to be tactful about this. "I'm not confused or, missing any time except for how I got from the beach on Mr. Cornithos' island to your ship. I'm a little weirded out about that. To tell you the truth."

"My men got you off the island. Sonny was holding you against your will."

"Nope."

"Yes, Carly."

"Ok, guy… look at me." She turned to face him. "Really look." She paused to give him time. "Do I look like Mrs. Carly Corinthos to you? Do I sound like her?" He said nothing.

"My name is Sheena, Sheena Penzo. I'm an international business attorney. I work for Mr. Corinthos in Puerto Rico. He acquired my services with a rum and molasses plant he bought out a few years ago. I, my son and my nephew… we were on vacation. My boss called and said Mr. Corinthos had offered us the use of his private villa to thank me for all my hard work. I'd be called when I was needed back to take plenty of time to relax." She sighed and rubbed her face. "I don't know what kind of _association_ you and Mr. Corinthos have but I can assure you I'm nothing in the scheme of things. I mostly just translate simple documents, contracts to import and export rum, molasses. _Legally_.

"Now I'd like to go back to the island and to my boys. I don't have a nanny, they would have woken up alone, terrified. Kevin's only six, he can't care for a baby. He can't even really control his bladder for heaven's sake."

When he looked at her she was crying. She didn't seem to know it. He wiped a tear from her face and fought with himself.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Penzo. It appears we've both been duped."

"I'm sorry. I don't much care. I just need to get back." She was trembling.

"You must think me a monster, stealing women with young children to care for, holding them hostage on a ship."

"I told you, I don't care," her temper began to snap. "Whatever you and Mr. Corinthos have going on between you is just that. Between you. I have nothing to do with it. I just want my kids."

"And you shall have them." He watched her bravery rear back into view. "But you are wrong, you are in it, Ms. Penzo. Corinthos used you. Put you and your family in a position he knew would be …compromising."

"Whatever, sure. Just get me back to that island." She spoke faster now, the difference in her voice ringing out. It was more consistently low, the tones deeper and less ululated.

"You don't seem at all concerned that the man you worked for jeopardized your safety and that of two small children knowingly." He looked at his hands, clasped in front of him, then seriously into her eyes like one might a itinerant child.

"I'd be a lot more concerned about my future health or the two children relying on me as their sole source of love, support, food and shelter if I quit working for a man like Sonny Corinthos or complained of his treatment of me, which up until this very moment I thought miraculously acceptable, even preferable to other employers I've had." She huffed.

"That's how he starts out but little by little you lose everything to him. Carly did, that's why both he and I have gone to such extremes here. I'll do _anything_ to save her, he'll do anything to destroy her." He stood, the weariness of his worry, his love, his fight for Carly pulling him down making, his body heavy as it had only been once before.

"You just do anything to get me back to that island." She put a hand on his arm, feeling for the look of lost pain on his face.

She dashed up the street, determined to make that phone call before the office closed at five pm. Laughing at the Morley boys screaming over the gutted engine of their '78 Camaro she bounded into the house and headed for the kitchen.

It was there she felt it. The familiar sensation of someone hiding, someone watching her, of him. She hid the shiver that ran through her and the clutch of desperation as she began to search around the room from the place where she'd stopped dead. "You think you're clever, but you've the same old stank on you. Smell you at fifty paces. You won't leave here with what you came for." She called out, eyeing corners and waiting for him to slither out.

"If Carly wants to leave, if the boys want to go home with their father, you really think you'll stop them, me?" Sonny Corinthos slid out from behind the wall setting apart the dinning room, he came through the serving doors and stood in the center of her kitchen.

"I knew I smelled a _rat_; different ilk, same scum. Pity all that poison I laid out didn't do the trick." She posed with a wrist, flipped, on one hip and the other's fingers twiddling at her side. "Well," she said consideringly, resignedly, at least you were smart enough not to show your face to Carolina before me." She moved over to the counter behind the man. "That would have only confused things more. As it is they're mess enough. Suitably, I ought to dig out your insides slowly, with a dental pick. No time for it though. Much as it pains me I'll have to do this a much more expedient way." She flicked her wrist and Sonny saw her hand hold a large butcher knife. "You hurt what's mine and I'll have my pound of flesh."

He looked from her hand, her knife, to her eyes. They were molten and yet oddly cold. She meant to cut and he knew it. She was Carly's and he'd never thought he'd have to hurt a woman, but if it meant staying alive he'd have to. He just hoped she wasn't so determined he'd have to take her life to escape with his own. She was after all Carly's, he'd taken enough from her.

She saw his eyes flick back to the knife and taunted on, "That's right. You appreciate a well worked knife, a fine edge, and detest misuse. Well, you'll be mighty pleased to know I've been caring for this knife special, just for you, all these months. I always doubted I'd have the time to truly dedicate to making you suffer. Hoped, but understood reality for what it was." 

She was circling him like a vulture, the gleaming knifepoint in his face, there in the deep toned kitchen. It had reminded him of his own at first. They both heard the front door open, boots click on the foyer tile.

"Miss Eilene Omme, you put that knife away."

"I'll do no such thing, Daryl McInroe. And as a gentleman there's no way you can make me."

"As a sheriff there are plenty of ways."

"But no true southern gent would sink so low."

Sonny was irked by the way neither even glanced in the other's direction for course. It made them seem almost telepathic.

"Such a pity you didn't get here in time, Sheriff," she said sweetly and cocking her head at Sonny. "Why it was just terrifying coming into my very own home, and finding a burglar. I was just shaken to bits and he came at me, for sure to do me womanly harm. My own knife in his hand. We struggled, somehow the knife just sunk into his groin. Nothing I could do for him, scared as I was. Poor degenerate soul bleed to death right before my eyes. Hideous." Her face was smooth as her voice, flowing in that leeward fashion over her words, a slice of fear in with the feral, a terrified quiver to her chin.

Oh, this was the woman who'd taught his wife tricks.

"Look at my floors, Daryl, tell me how's a lady to get that stain out of her best Aubasson?"

"By not killing the damn fool to start with." He sighed and shifted a sign Eilene obviously knew was the end of where she could play her scene out. "Besides only a fool woman would keep her best Aubusson in the dalgridged kitchen."

"Oh, hell, Daryl I was just gonna run this damn ratified Yankee off." She switched the knife in her hand so that the blade ran along her forearm and practiced move Sonny'd learned on the street from a boy who beat him up once. Marcus Taggert. "He's the scum even Jancy Farnum would despise noticing on the bottom of his shoe."

"Ah, then I guess I've the pleasure of looking at Carolina's _rat_ of a Yankee husband." He held out a hand, Sonny cautiously regarded it. "I'd think your man up the street would have discouraged you from confronting this hellcat we so proudly claim." Lowering the still unshaken hand. "She put the fear of God in him but good awhile back, trembles at the sight of her. Don't want to know how she did it." He shook his head, the last comment seemed to be aimed at the woman without him even acknowledging her presence in the room.

"All I did was offer him some good 'ole fashioned southern hospitality. Is it my fault Corinthos hires his own smarmy kind?" Her hands swung, her arms gestured, but the knife stayed snug, damaging nothing, cutting nothing but flashing under all their noses. "Flighty, and dim witted to boot. A wonder he's managed to feed himself all this time. Maybe I'll go make him a plate."

"You know good and well he won't put anything in his mouth you've touched." He shifted. Seemed to be constantly moving his feet in the room. Both of them fidgeting. Sonny making not a move, thinking—if not for the lawman's nearly constant gaze on him—that they'd forgotten him in favor of his badly hidden spy.

"That just makes it fun, Sheriff." She swept off to the cupboards, the knife still intimate, a part of her body. "Speakin' of, you ought to stay on for supper Daryl. Carolina's been making her special roast all day. And you know how you dearly love—"

"I do. Next only to my mama's ham." Daryl tugged on the brim of his cowboy hat as if in deference to his beloved mama and her cooking. The reference gave Sonny more than pause…Carly's cooking? How bad could his mother's food be?

"A true Tennessee gentleman, in love with him mama's food. She ought to be right proud of you." She still shoved around fixings and seemed to be taking great amounts of food and arranging them neatly onto a paper plate.

"On the same hand, Miss Eilene Omme, your mama must be right disgusted with you." He began bustling Sonny out the door. "Treating a guest this way."

"Guest my eye. Justifiable homicide, Sheriff, justifiable homicide."

"I thought it was self-defense."

That served as a good-bye between the pair and with them out of her home Eilene slid the shining knife home. She collapsed in grateful sobs over Tormé's meal. This was a rat she could handle.

Outside on her flower lined walk said rat and local sheriff stood. Daryl removed his hat, breathed in the sun, and settled it back on his head. Then he took Sonny's elbow, a man accustomed to leading the cuffed and unabiding, a man accustomed to being cuffed and unabiding.

Sonny, realizing the pattern they'd slipped into angled away from him. Daryl let him.

"Well, Officer, is this the part where you tell me to pay no mind to the little lady, her bark is worse than her bite?"

"No, this is the part where I tell you if Miss Eilene Omme's got a hankering to castrate you, best you run in the opposite direction as far and fast as you can with your man parts in both hands. And I'm the sheriff round here, you'd do best to remember that… and a few other things, son." Sonny felt like reminding the sheriff he was old enough to have been his very young father, in no way his son. "One being that the Omme ladies ain't little. Two, they'll eat you alive for even thinking it. Three, you take one step towards them as that makes 'em a mite uncomfortable, a tad squeamish, and I'll be on you like the Farnum Family Rash. I bet you look real pretty in black and white stripes."

The sheriff walked silently behind him until they arrived at the door of the house Tormé kept.

"Don't you bother changing men, she don't know he's here. Miss Eilene Omme will just sniff out anybody else you send and terrorize him. These two have seemed to reach some sort of agreement. My advice is to let it lie if it has to be at all."

Sonny went inside bent on scaring Tormé into a more stealthy surveillance.

She'd been nervous but polite the whole ride to the island. The copter was loud and didn't afford much opportunity for discussion but he found Ms. Penzo delightful nonetheless.

When they were given permission to land she saw a man and woman standing just off the pad with a small redheaded boy and a baby carrier. She squealed and plastered her flat hands to the window. Before they'd even touched down she was pulling at the straps that held her, the handle, straining for the children.

Finally released by the co-pilot she bolted across the landing pad and enveloped the boy and baby. He saw the setting sun catch the tears on her face and shimmer. Diamonds on her cheeks.

Then Corinthos' man approached him. His stay was over.

When she'd made sure Kevin and Jeremy were safe, whole, healthy she turned to Lorenzo. "Wait, we're coming." She had to get her boys back to where she knew her surroundings, back to where she trusted the people around her, back to where she could relax enough to figure out what to do next, what had happened, and how they would all survive.

Lorenzo saw the plead in her eyes for the moment they connected with his and then she was bundling the children towards the helicopter and telling the woman to have all their things packed and shipped to Puerto Rico.

The burly man got in her way for only a moment but she dismissed him with a message for Mr. Corinthos. She thanked him for the island but she felt the boys would like to go home, and be amongst family, friends. Again, she thanked them and dashed around to the helicopter, loading the children and securing them.

In moments they were off again. Lorenzo would have the pilot fly to his own plane rather than the yacht, then he'd fly Ms. Penzo and her two boys to Puerto Rico personally.

To make sure Corinthos didn't make trouble for them. For no other reasons. Naturally.

He watched them at the park. She'd felt it. Panicking.

But she tried to calm herself, focus on getting her boys and Eilene away clean.

And then she felt that thud.

He'd found them. It couldn't have been that hard. But this was his first appearance. It had only taken six months. Eilene was in serious danger if Sonny could find them so easily. Even worse if he felt lurking in the bushes at the park was an easy enough a way to spy.

She ignored him. Let him watch her play with the boys, let him see them smile, laugh, be a family. She let him see what he'd given up, what he'd tried to wreck. Then she gathered them close and went back to the house.

After they were clean and tucked in she slipped out past the back porch to the garden, there was a bench with gardenias where she liked to sit. So she sat, waited. She heard a twig snap, then strained silence no deer would think of.

She cleared her throat, "You might as well come out, there's poison ivy back there. She planted because it's your snoop's favorite spot." Her voice rang still of beyond the Mason-Dixon, it matched Eilene's.

"Damn Tormé, no good at anything but pretty pictures." He stumbled out of the brush looking for the dreaded plant around him. Hoping he hadn't been standing in it.

"What did you expect? He doesn't exactly blend in." She watched him sit, tugging up his pant legs as he got comfortable.

"You know when they boys wake up this grumpy I send them back to bed." He grumbled and she realized he was truly disturbed about something, his front slipping, or missing all together. "What's got your tighy-whities in a twist?" Her accent began to fade and she let it. With Sonny it was too easy and too hard to be herself. He saw through most of her masks anyway, she saw through most of his.

"Why in the hell does everyone use that woman's whole name when referring to her?" Exasperated, he leaned his elbows on his knees and rubbed both hands against his stubbled face.

She raised her eyebrows. "I take it then you two have finally crossed paths." She listened to him growl, enjoying his annoyance and pain. "And she let you live?"

"Everyone seems surprised about that."

"Everyone?"

He'd been snapping, he knew, but her seemingly unflappable calm was starting to irk him. This wasn't Carly, not his Carly. His Carly would have pulled a knife on him, too.

"Daryl, Tormé." He sighed rubbed his face again. "I'm a little shocked myself. That woman sincerely wanted to kill me."

"How'd she find you?" She was watching his back. It seemed so much wider now, the shoulders farther apart. Like Atlas balancing the world on them.

"Waiting for you in her kitchen. Last time I sit in a room with objects of torture and a psycho woman." He looked over his hunched shoulder at her. "I see where you get it."

"She always was louder than me." She looked out over Eilene's garden. So many different, gorgeous, sweet smelling blossoms. Some of them in full bloom, curling out to take in the sun and its atomies. Some waiting to peak their shy heads into the light and learn the glory. Some already withered and died, their time past, their beauty gone. "Why aren't you mad?"

"That you picked up and left? I figured you'd need time. As long as the boys were safe, I was willing to give it to you. I know I yanked the rug out from under you. I'm sorry, but it doesn't change it." He looked into her eyes after apologizing to the peonies. He saw how empty she was. How vague her eyes. There was pain, vulnerability, there always had been. But she wasn't fighting to keep them hidden. There was always fight in her eyes. Always. Now it was gone. He'd banished it. He'd known he would. A gun shot hadn't killed it, an affair, broken promises… one well-meaning lie.

In that instant he suddenly knew and understood how Carly had felt a thousand times before.

How one well-meaning lie can break everything.

"Oh, I meant … her."

"I don't know why I don't care." Because he loved her, because he'd hurt her.

"I don't want Michael and Morgan to see you yet. Their doing well and …"

"And Sheriff Daryl Do-Right's a much better father figure."

"Well, he keeps his promises."

"And I don't." Cut, bleeding, why wasn't there blood on the gardenias?

"Not when you don't want to anymore."

"What about your promises?"

So much blood, how could in not reek in the air?

"I never claimed that death would be the only way I failed to keep them."

How could there still be that gentle sent? Why weren't they knee deep in gore?

"I did the best I could with what happened, Carly."

Her eyes were raw, ironic, twisted. His were gutted and cold. "You should know, good intentions don't mean squat." She stood. "I'm not going back to Port Charles, neither are the boys. When things are settled enough here you can start visiting them. I'll call you. Until then, Sonny, go back to Sam _and_ Alexis' kids, forget you've ever seen this place, talked to these people. And leave us alone."

"Just go."

"Just go." She nodded.

He rose to leave, through the gate by the side of the house.

Suddenly Eilene Omme was there.

"Oh, leaving so soon?" Her smile was beatific. "Why, then, if you're sure you can't stay, I'll just see you out." She swept her hand out congenially towards the gate.

He started again towards it and she went with him, just enough to the front and aside to seem like she lead him there. She continued to smile brilliantly, she opened the gate and ushered him through. Almost effortlessly she was in the lead again. Taking him on the cobblestone path that lead to the poured cement one to the main door. Then down the walk to the few steps that lead to the sidewalk. There she stepped to the left and, hands folded watched him descend.

When he hit the last step her arsenic laced aspartame voice called out, "Come back and you'll wish Daryl had never walked in." He whirled to face her. Her voice changed to a deeper, malevolent rather than southern cream. "You short man," she spoke over her shoulder and down her nose, turning to return to her house.

"I know who you are." He stopped her, wanted to take back some of the power, the control he'd lost to the insulting woman and Carly's coldness and hatred. She did stop but the expression on her face when she turned was pity and amusement, distain.

"You may think, though I doubt it's with anything but your prick, you may even think you know who and what I am. You may have formed a suspicion or two, or a dozen…one of them may even bear some semblance of truth. You may even find yourself tripping over facts, someday, maybe, even proof. You might just get that lucky. Should fortune favor the fool. And you're just dumb enough to think that you can use it against me, or whatever justification your small intellect arrives at. Should that knowledge, the little your small mind may be burdened with, be made public, indeed even pseudo private, you," she took a step towards him and her voice dropped a small step, "will have placed," another two steps, "everyone in that home directly," yet another, "behind me in mortal peril. People," and another, "children," another, "you professed to love." She turned to the house again and began to walk to the door, the steps leading to it. "Get thee behind me, Satan, and tempt me no more." With that she slammed the door at her back, in his face though it was still yards away.

He turned and waded through the broken glass, the tattered rags, the shattered bodies, the vanquished souls, and walked back to the little house Tormé kept, lifeless.

He didn't know how long it would be until his life could go on. But he'd wait and do his best to keep the circling darkness at bay.

Inside the house that seemed to hold what was left, one blonde screamed at another.

"You practically challenged him. Are you nuts? He can do it. He will. He's not some powerless backwater town sheriff." She ran frantic hands through her hair. Panic clawed at her throat. She knew she'd lose what little fight she had with Eilene gone. Sonny rising to the challenge she'd laid before him would strip her secrets away with terrifying speed. "You fucking challenged him."

"I challenged his pride, his manhood, his intelligence, his height—"

"You all but dared him to bring us out of the closet and—"

"That I did. And then I told him that the cost of doing so would be his sons. It's always best to challenge procreation and heirs last. Negates that whole was he a good king or a bad king question and asks was he the rightful king at all."

"Why do I feel like were doomed?" She sounded as dejected as she had when she first arrived on the door step Eilene had just stepped off of.

"Simple. You fear discovery more than you do the fight. His finding out isn't the problem; what he does with it is. If he understands it will hurt you or the boys he'll keep his yap as shut as he knows how, for a worthless, smarmy rat… it'll have to do."


End file.
